Cult of the Hexad (Afterlife saga Book 6)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “You know what you need…a game of angry birds Star Wars edition!”

  “Uh…come again?” I said in confusion and I saw Adam grinning from behind his newspaper.

  “I can feel you grinning, honey bumpkins…he’s only smiling because he has more levels cleared than me but it’s those stupid little pigs fault, they just don’t do what they’re told and you would think that by giving them their own Lightsabers they would take the responsibility more seriously and do as they are friggin’ told!” She raged bouncing all over her seat with her back to Adam.

  “Breathe little plum and remember, it’s participating that counts sweetheart, not the winning.” I had to giggle as when Adam said this Pip mimicked him, word for word.

  “Yeah well he would say that seeing as he doesn’t lose at any game we play…he’s such a nerd, I even bought him nerd of the week underpants.” Pip told me and I looked to Draven who had one eyebrow raised at Adam.

  “They’re very comfy, my Lord.” He responded and I chuckled.

  “I think I will stick to commando.” Draven commented dryly which just made me laugh even harder. Then I snuggled over to him and whispered in his ear,

  “I’m glad, easy access.” Then I winked at him and now he was the one chuckling but there was one thing I was forgetting and that was damn supernatural hearing!

  “Oh they don’t take long to get into at allin fact there was this one time in Shanghai where there was this particularly huge…”

  “Pipper.” Adam said her name in warning and she folded her arms and slumped back in her seat.

  “You know he won’t let me tell any of the good stories!” She complained and I had to try to keep a straight face but I was still curious,

  “What makes them nerd of the week pants?”

  “Oh fairy gods they are epic! Like Mondays have a picture of Dr Who with his Sonic Screwdriver over where Adam’s pe…”

  “Yep, got it! So they’re all like that.” I said thinking this might not be the best conversation to be having with the poor man sitting right there, although I dare say being married to Pip he was probably used to it!

  I quickly found out that her other favourites included, ‘Release the Wookie’ from Star Wars, The Periodic Table with the symbol for Iron ‘Fe’ over a certain area, that then in smaller letters said underneath, With the Power to ‘Fuck Everywhere’. But she told me her personal all time fav…her words…were Thursdays, ‘You can Klingon to my Photon Torpedo any day of the week!’ Which she explained was from Star Trek, and if I wasn’t a fan, then this was something that needed to be rectified immediately.

  After this and a load more giggling, we started playing this game she was telling me about and I completely agreed with her, those fat little Sci fi pigs just wouldn’t go the way I wanted them to! It was at this point when Draven was laughing at me getting so worked up that something unexpected happened.

  “It’s okay, he would totally be the same if he was playing it!” Pip said then she patted my bare forearm and everything changed. I couldn’t understand it but the whole inside of the jet folded in on itself as though the walls had started peeling away to nothing. Underneath the smooth, curved white lines and strip lights were bare block walls and suddenly it looked as if I was sat in a prison cell!

  “What…what’s happening?” I turned to Draven to see him turn to stone and start crumbling away like he was made of ash. I screamed at the sight as one by one they all blew away with the rest of the remains of the plane.

  “Stop this! Stop this! STOP THIS!” I screamed again and again holding my head in my hands and shaking it like I needed to empty my mind.

  “Have you forgotten all about me…My Catherine?” Came a voice and I looked up to see I was back in my Uncle’s basement. A dread filled thought crashed through me that I was back there and this had all been a dream. But then I really started to look and noticed the differences. The bed in the corner had been the same one in my vision that day, the last time I was locked down there. The day that kicked started events that changed our lives completely.

  “Who are you?” I asked the shadows looking desperately around for a figure hiding there. I didn’t recognise the voice, so knew it wasn’t my Uncle coming back to haunt me.

  “We were meant to be together, you and I.” He told me and I looked all around in a desperate attempt to make any sort of sense out of all of this. Had I fallen asleep?

  “I don’t know you and my name is Katie.” I said for some reason not giving him my real name.

  “So many names…so many lives…but still, not enough deaths.” His voice took on a malicious edge in this last bit.

  “Look, I told you I don’t know who you are!” I shouted getting angry and looking round for anywhere I could run to.

  “No but you will…you will again…soon.” This was finally when I knew where to look. I walked a few steps round further into the room and looked up at the staircase. There at the very top stood a black figure looming there like death waiting to take me.

  “You will be happy here once again. We were so happy together, until you went and spoiled it with all your blood!” He said getting angry and I couldn’t help but ask,

  “What blood?”

  “Pick up the glass and look for yourself.” He told me and at that moment a ray of light shone in my eyes from the floor. I looked down and saw a broken piece of mirror just lying there. I bent to pick it up and somewhere inside the room a music box started to play.

  “You asked for death, listening to the sound of sugarplum fairies.” I frowned knowing that the sound chilled me to the bone but I couldn’t understand why. So I slowly lifted the mirror as this would have my answers and looked into the shard.

  “No…no, it’s not me! It can’t be me! STOP IT! DON’T DO IT!” I screamed as I watched myself slashing over and over at my own wrists and with each cut I made blood dripped from the shard I held, pouring down my arm and landing in a pool on the floor by my feet.

  “STOP THIS! IT NEVER HAPPENED!” I screamed again knowing that it had. Knowing this was what really happened to my arms. Because if I actually died that day in the car crash, if Katie was no more, then what else could explain my scars?

  “It can’t be…I would never…” I sobbed and then suddenly the world started to tip and it sounded like a jet engine was right outside the windows. The room shook and slowly the basement was falling into the ground, nose diving.

  I fell forward only for the shadowed man to catch me as he was no longer at the top of the stairs but right in front of me. The face of someone I knew was suddenly there and I screamed out his name, for it was one I now remembered.

  “Morgan!” He smiled his evil grin and said,

  “Let him know…

  I’m coming for you.”

  I jerked back and then fell to my side, quickly realising I was still in the plane but it was out of control. I pushed myself to my feet and looked around to see everyone on the plane was unconscious!

  “WAKE UP!” I shouted pushing Pip, who just flopped over and then Adam. Alarms were going off and I looked out the window to see we were going down!

  “Oh God!” I didn’t know what to do but I needed to think of something and quick or we were all dead! I turned right around and found Draven slumped in his seat completely out of it. I used the seats to stay on my feet as the plane started shaking. When I made it to him I jumped on him and slapped his face once, twice even a third time but there was nothing.

  “DRAVEN WE ARE GOING TO DIE!” I screamed down in his face but still nothing. I would have thought he was dead if I couldn’t see his chest rising and falling.

  “Draven please! Save us!” I sobbed knowing somehow this was all my fault. I had done this! This stupid power I didn’t understand could end up killing everyone! Come on think, think! Fuck! THINK! Power…that was it…if my powers did this then they could undo it.

  “Come on you have to work…come on!” I thought about the energy I had flowing inside of me and I
pulled it to my hands, I only needed a little bit, not much or I might destroy the damn plane. I felt it starting to tingle and looked at my fingers to see it emitting little sparks.

  “Okay here goes everything!”

  “WAKE UP!” I screamed and hit Draven in the chest with my palm out flat. I pushed with everything I had so my power would shoot in to him and he suddenly arched his back as he shouted out, dragging air through his lungs.

  “What happen…”

  “Draven the plane! We are going down!” I told him quickly and half a second later I was on my feet and Draven was stumbling to the cockpit.

  “Strap in!” He shouted back to me and the door flapped open, banging against the wall to show me glimpses of Draven in the captain’s seat, with the captain also unconscious on the floor where Draven had put him.

  “Fuck! Hold on Keira!” He said, and I felt the plane start to go up and I felt sick to my stomach as the pressure hit my body. I saw Pip flopping around and I wished I had strapped her in first before doing as I was told by Draven. I heard another alarm going off and Draven started saying,

  “Come on baby! Just hold it together for me…COME ON!” He yelled out and soon it lifted enough that he could level it out. I completely refused to look out of the window, in fact by this point I had my eyes closed and I think even a little wee came out!

  But he had done it! Draven had saved everyone on board and I could breathe once more. I let my head fall back against the headrest and had to hold back the urge to burst into tears.

  “Keira are you alright?” I couldn’t answer him as reality of what I had done sank in further.

  “Keira!”

  “Yes.” I told him but he could tell that was a lie by the emotional way I had said it.

  “Wh…what happened?” I heard a man ask and I looked round to see the Pilot waking up.

  “Everything is fine Carter, you passed out so I took over.” Draven told him and I then heard a long string of apologises that were only really mine to say, coming from the pilot. Draven assured him everything was fine and then I heard the door close before he came back through the plane. As he passed he touched Adam and Pip, waking them up from their forced slumber.

  “Hey I napped! Honey I finally napped!” Pip said sounding excited and Adam took one look at the situation and read it for what it was immediately.

  “Let’s go check on the others, little Plum.” Pip took one look at him and said,

  “Oh, you want to give them space…well why didn’t you just say that.” She then jumped up and said,

  “Remember kids, no nookie is bad nookie!” Then winked and skipped down the aisle off to see Takeshi, Ragnar and Rue who I had completely forgot about. I was just glad that Sophia and Zagan weren’t on here as they stayed behind for some reason Draven wouldn’t say.

  “I don’t know what happened…” I started to say as he came to stand before me. Then he got down on one knee and asked,

  “Are you alright?”

  “No! I could have killed everyone! The plane was about to crash and I woke up and nobody was awake and I panicked and…”

  “Ssshh, it’s alright now.” Was he drunk?!

  “Alright now! Are you crazy? Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Yes and unless you shock me by telling me you knew what you were doing and this was some insane prank, then it is done now and there is little point torturing yourself over it, when what we should be doing is trying to understand it. Now tell me what happened.” I nodded, feeling better that he didn’t blame me at least.

  “Well as you know we were just playing that stupid pig game and then Pip touched my arms and…” I looked down at my scars and Draven took hold of them as they started to shake. The memory of what really happened started to creep under my skin now the immediate panic was over.

  “I was taken, wasn’t I?” I looked up at Draven who still remained on one knee in front of me. He closed his eyes as if this was what he dreaded me finding out the most.

  “Yes. Before we met you had…history.” The way he said this told me he didn’t know what else to call it.

  “I saw myself back there. I was scared and in the dark. I felt like I had been in the dark for so long, locked away in the shadows that it changed me.” I took a minute and Draven used both his thumbs to take my tears away.

  “I picked up a piece of the mirror and I saw what I did to myself…please tell me it was wrong…please tell me I didn’t try and kill myself, tell me he didn’t win that way…please.” I sobbed out my pleas to him, grasping on to his t shirt as if I let go time could tear me back there. I was never going back to that place!

  Never…

  “No. listen to me, you didn’t try and take your life, you did it to save yourself and most of all your family…you were a heroine…you’re always the heroine Keira, please believe that.” He told me and I cried even harder into his shoulder, not understanding what he meant but hearing that I didn’t give up that way was enough to comfort me.

  “I will explain everything to you and you will see. But for now, I think that we hold off on long plane journeys until we have this new power figured out.” I had to laugh and knew this was his way of trying to help me through this.

  “I think I’d better cancel the white water rafting then.” He chuckled and then said,

  “Good plan and in turn I will cancel the track day and balloon ride.” I laughed louder this time and said,

  “And I will cancel the…” He stopped me by pulling me to him for a body tingling kiss, the kind that left me near panting at the end of it.

  “Sorry, it’s just the ‘cancel’ thing could have lasted a while.” Then he winked at me when my mouth dropped in shock. It wasn’t often Draven cracked jokes but when he did it was worth being teased for that grin alone.

  “You’re lucky you’re so sexy and handsome, that’s all I can say.” I told him making him laugh.

  “As long as you think so then that’s all that matters.” Again he winked and this time I hit him in the stomach making him laugh.

  “So any ideas to what happened?” I asked when he retook his seat opposite me.

  “I have a theory, yes.”

  “Care to share with the class?”

  “Not really but you will only nag me I suppose.” He teased again and I knew he was doing this to help keep me relaxed and my mind off feeling guilty.

  “Ha ha, well I am a wife after all, isn’t that what men think we all do once we get a ring on our finger?” Draven gave me a small smile and then looked down at my hand in regret. I followed his gaze to see no ring was where it should have been.

  “I wish I had never lost it when they took me.” Draven obviously not knowing what to say to that just shrugged and looked out the window. It was probably not something he wanted to think about right now or maybe he had something else planned and just needed the time to get me a new one. That thought certainly put a smile on my face.

  “So, your theory?” I asked him again.

  “I think that some of your difficult memories somehow get triggered and then try to break through. Only the block on your mind counteracts this and in turn the stress it causes comes through in a burst of uncontrollable power. Remember the mind is a powerful thing and when it has been messed with as yours has then there are going to be side effects.”

  “I guess so. Just like when I would pass out in the beginning.”

  “Exactly. Too much stress and your brain will cope anyway it needs to and this power you hold will react if it feels its host is threatened.” Okay so this made sense, in a strange way at least.

  “So I just need more time to try and control it…more practice I mean.”

  “Yes and I will be there to help you. You’re not alone as most of my kind experience the same thing when acquiring a new host as our powers develop and our new body has to grow accustomed to the changes.” I found all this fascinating and was going to ask more questions when Draven suddenly stopped me with a difficult questio
n of his own.

  “I don’t like asking this of you Keira, but I need to know.”

  “What?”

  “Were you alone in your vision?” My reaction probably told him his answer when I took a deep breath but I said it anyway,

  “No, there was a man there.”

  “Do you know his name?” I nodded and said,

  “Yes, he told me…no wait, I just seemed to know it…it was Morgan.” At this Draven looked ready to spit fire at just hearing the name being spoken. But then if I thought this made him angry before then the next answer he received was one of pure hate,

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “Yes he did. He called me Catherine and said we were meant to be together, Oh God…”

  “What, what is it, what did he say?” I looked to him, bit my lips and then said,

  “He told me to tell you…”

  “What?”

  “That he’s coming for me.”

  Chapter 46

  Perfection

  Once we were back within the walls of Afterlife I couldn’t help but feel better. I was as if all felt right with the world again, well almost. I knew that it would take some adjusting to this new way of life but at least now I could enjoy it without being worried about Ari and having the Hexad looming over my head.

  All the remaining ‘Fathers’ were awaiting trial and from what I could gather Lucius had, for the moment, taken control of the situation. I asked Draven about this and he told me that the ‘Rogues’ as they were known, were indeed what I first thought…Vampires. And as it passed over to the responsibility of the Vampire King, it was up to Lucius to deal with their sentence.